Newsletter

Labor Day is last hurrah before tourism's Sept. slump

Labor Day weekend is often the last hurrah in St. Augustine before the September slump, the slow period in the tourism industry.

Jannelle Lopez and Joshua Rosenauer from Gainesville spent the day and their money in St. Augustine. Rosenauer said, "Depending on how long we stay today, we could spend a couple hundred bucks."

11,000 people in St. Johns County are employed in the tourism industry, and they have started seeing visitor trends change.

"Labor Day is an awesome day! It's been an awesome weekend," said a beaming Kathy Fleming with the St. Augustine Lighthouse and Museum.

The St. Augustine Lighthouse monitors where its visitors come from.

The lighthouse and other St. Augustine area attractions are noticing visitors aren't coming from as far away as they used to and they're spending less time preparing for their vacations.

"They're maybe taking a month to plan to come someplace as opposed to six months to plan," Fleming explained.

To compensate, the Lighthouse plans to spend money on online advertising. It's also creating visitor programs for the slow months and "we're going to be advertising the area specifically to those places that we're seeing visitors coming from," Fleming explained.

The goal is to pull in overnight guests as well as day-trippers like Lopez and Rosenauer.

"It's fun, no matter if you're a kid or an adult. There's always something to do," Lopez smiled.